Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Baroness Keeley and Hugh Robertson

Thursday 13th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

T2. The all-party group on women’s sport and fitness wants to see our fantastic women athletes in the media, inspiring girls and women of all ages to take part in sport. However, outside the Olympics, women’s sport gets 5% of the media coverage and less than 1% of the commercial sponsorship. Do Ministers agree that this must change, and will DCMS Ministers work with the all-party group over the coming months to ensure that it does?

[The Minister of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Hugh Robertson)]

The answer to that is absolutely yes. We were trying—[Interruption.]

Community Groups (Lottery Funding)

Debate between Baroness Keeley and Hugh Robertson

Tuesday 25th October 2011 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Sport and the Olympics (Hugh Robertson)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley), both on securing this debate and on the way that she has put her case across. Having said that, I must say at the outset that I owe her two apologies. First, I am not the Minister in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport who has been responsible for the national lottery. That is the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose) and I am afraid that he is away at a European meeting today. Secondly and probably even more fundamentally, because it took the DCMS some time to make contact with the hon. Lady’s office and establish the precise points that she wanted to raise, we are no longer even the Department that she needs to answer her questions. As she knows, the responsibility for BIG—the Big Lottery Fund—has now transferred to the Cabinet Office. So she really wants the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General, who is now responsible for BIG.

Needless to say, I have a wonderfully drafted speech, but it answers very few of the hon. Lady’s questions. The best thing that I can do is to give her an undertaking that I will write to the chair of BIG. She can either write me a letter that I will send on to him, or I am very happy to get officials in my Department to write to him and ensure that the questions that she has put today are taken on board and that something is done about them.

At the end of her speech, the hon. Lady asked me if I thought that what has happened in her area was an acceptable way to operate. The honest answer is, “No, I don’t think it is.” I am not an expert on the exact administrative charges that apply to BIG. However, when BIG was administered by DCMS, as part of the comprehensive spending review we set all our non-departmental public bodies—including the two that I am responsible for directly, which are UK Sport and Sport England—a target of bringing their administrative costs down to 5% of their spend. I would be very surprised if BIG was allowed to be an exception to that at any stage in the future.

I absolutely share the hon. Lady’s analysis of what has gone wrong here. It is very likely that the lottery distributor looked to an existing pattern—a form of working—that, for the reasons she has perfectly outlined, simply does not exist in Little Hulton. Therefore, having promised this money, it was imperative for BIG to find some other way to deliver it, because there is nothing more frustrating and draining for community groups than to be offered the opportunity to bid for a pot of money such as this one, which, as the hon. Lady correctly said, could and should be very profitably used in the local community—indeed, that is exactly what the national lottery was set up to do and it is why ticket sales have increased year on year, as they have done—and then the promise not to be delivered on over a protracted period of time. I am absolutely with her on all of that.

[Barbara Keeley]

In fact, we did not even have to bid for this money. The important thing about this element of BIG funding is that it is meant to redress the imbalance. Clearly there is a big imbalance to be redressed, whereby the constituency of Cities of London and Westminster has received £914 million of lottery funding and my constituency has received only £6 million, which is a very small amount.

What has happened in Little Hulton is an absolute indication that we do not have a community infrastructure, whereby groups are ready, able and full of the sort of people who can put bids in. There is a sort of double disappointment, that this is a scheme like the previous scheme, Fair Share, to try to redress that imbalance a little bit, but what happened is that a series of new barriers were erected. The right thing to do would have been for BIG to send someone in with some experience of community development in an area such as Little Hulton—there are people up and down the country who have that experience—and they could have tried to work with local people to develop their agenda.

Having looked at this project in Little Hulton, it seems crazy for BIG to have a scheme to distribute money in areas that have failed to bid for lottery money but then to look for a bidding organisation in those areas. That is the point, really. There will be 50 of these projects and the Big Local Trust really needs to have a different path that, as the Minister says, helps those projects to get started in areas where there is no community infrastructure. Instead, people could use councils, churches, schools and those sorts of bodies.

[Hugh Robertson]

I can only say to the hon. Lady that I agree with her absolutely. As she correctly said, the problem points to the fact that much of the infrastructure that would normally be needed to apply for lottery grants is simply not present. Therefore, if money is to be delivered effectively—no one wants to see money promised but not translated into projects on the ground—alternative delivery mechanisms to the normal ones will be needed. I suspect, without wishing to over-egg the pudding, she will find that that is the case not only for the areas for which BIG is responsible but for sports, arts and heritage, which are the three other beneficiaries of lottery funding, falling outside the allocation to BIG.

I can give the hon. Lady some small words of comfort: the problem is probably better understood than it was 10 years ago or at the start of the lottery in 1994, and a pattern can now be clearly established. All the national lottery distributors are aware of that. I spent an hour before I came to respond to the debate talking to Sport England about community sports grants, in connection with London 2012 and the inspired and iconic facilities, specifically concentrating on how we might get more of that money into areas where it is needed. We talked about the riots and about how we might increase the capacity for people to play sport, not only by putting in coaches and officials but by doing something about the facilities. The process has been lengthy but, slowly, some understanding has come about.

--- Later in debate ---

[Barbara Keeley]

I want to mention StreetGames—I am sure the Minister knows it—which, in my experience, has a wonderful model for going into deprived communities and getting projects off the ground. Perhaps BIG needs to be talking to StreetGames about how it does things.

[Hugh Robertson]

Let me immediately give the hon. Lady some comfort. It would probably be invidious of me not to name them all, but in our meeting we were talking about three organisations in that regard and StreetGames was one. When the party conference was in Manchester a few years back, I went to see a number of its projects, and I have seen it sponsor things here. Absolutely, StreetGames is that sort of provider organisation. I suspect that the problem she is facing with the Big Lottery Fund is that BIG has not recognised that other local organisations such as StreetGames in the voluntary and community area could deliver the sort of improvements for which she is looking.

I could test everyone’s time in the period before lunch by reading through my speech but, given what the hon. Lady has said this morning, I am not sure that it will add greatly to the nation’s sum of knowledge. By far the best thing that I can do to help her and her community is to give an undertaking. If she is prepared to write a letter to me, I will write on her behalf to the chairman of the Big Lottery Fund, telling him that I have given her an undertaking that he will meet her. We will arrange a meeting with him at which she can take up the issues directly. We might then achieve what we all want to see, which is that her community gets the money promised to it—which it clearly needs—as quickly and as efficiently as possible, commensurate with the need to account for the money correctly.

[Barbara Keeley]

That is a useful way forward, Mr Howarth, and I am happy to do what the Minister suggests.

[Hugh Robertson]

With that, I need detain the Chamber no longer.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Baroness Keeley and Hugh Robertson

Monday 29th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

It is known that a proportion of girls and young women dislike competitive sport, and that reduces their participation levels compared with boys and young men. If we are to ensure that the Olympic legacy meets the needs of all young people, what is the Government’s policy to increase participation among young people who just do not like competitive sport?

[Hugh Robertson]

I am glad to tell the hon. Lady that precisely those plans are contained in the Sport England plan “People, Places, Play”. It is also worth mentioning that at schools benefiting from the pupil premium, precisely those groups will be able to benefit. Indeed, the early evidence is that schools that have had extra money from the academies programme have spent it on sports equipment.

Football Clubs (Governance)

Debate between Baroness Keeley and Hugh Robertson

Wednesday 8th September 2010 Westminster Hall

[Barbara Keeley]

And those from much further afield. The constituents who have contacted me are also members of the Manchester United Supporters Trust. They have become disillusioned with how their club is being run and are concerned about the state of the national game. They think that football must start to be regulated properly and have its governance reformed.

Many Manchester United supporters in my constituency are greatly concerned that their club is now the most heavily indebted club in the world, after a hostile and highly leveraged takeover by the Glazer family in 2005. My right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) touched on the debt situation of that club. Prior to the takeover, the club had no debt at all. It now services debts in excess of £750 million. Although the club is still reporting a healthy operating profit, the money is not necessarily going into improving the club; it is being spent just on servicing the debt. The 2009 report by the all-party group on football points out that supporters paying off the debt in such situations do not even have a tangible influence over the direction of the club. As with Portsmouth’s situation, the longer-term future of the club is no longer assured.

That level of debt and uncertainty has a clear impact on supporters. Many feel that the decisions made by controlling interests in the club in the boardroom do not demonstrate long-term commitment to the club and its supporters. That is why dissatisfaction sometimes breaks out and there is a sea of green and gold instead of red at big matches at Wembley. My constituents rightly feel it is time for dedicated football fans to be given some sort of stake in the clubs that they and their families have helped to build over many years.

Football clubs are an integral part of the community, and their ownership and financial management should not just be dealt with through company law. Indeed, I remember when Manchester United behaved as if it was part of the local community in Trafford, where the club is based. When I was a Trafford councillor, a young David Beckham came to open a new centre for young people leaving care. Members of the team made visits to schools to read to children during reading weeks and the players were much more involved in the community that was home to their club. That changed and the players started to be seen more as a corporate resource. Prices for tickets and kit increased dramatically and players’ salaries soared. It has become much harder to see clubs such as Manchester United as part of our local community.

There should be stronger regulation to ensure that those owning and running football clubs understand their wider responsibilities to the community. Football clubs should not be run on the basis of massive debt, which can threaten the stability of both individual clubs and the health of the game as a whole. At the moment, the game has clear laws enforced by referees and assistants on the field. However, off the field, it is like trying to play a game with hardly any pitch markings, unclear laws and no referees. That is why, off the field, various forms of financial crisis are appearing all over the place—from Cardiff City to King’s Lynn, from Chester City to Southend, and from Manchester United and Liverpool to Portsmouth. We could say that governance in the football industry is no better than the governance of the banking industry over recent years.

There is plenty of legislation on football, but it is directed at the fans—for example, on all-seater stadiums, football banning orders and controls on drinking in sight of the pitch. What about some legislation to constrain what goes on in the boardroom? Legal models from elsewhere could be adapted to work in England and Wales. We have heard about examples from Germany, but there are also examples in France, the United States and Canada. Spain already has a national sports law that establishes a statutory national sports council and a special company status of sporting limited company. That law is not perfect—I understand that the Spanish Parliament is considering reforming it—but it does give a clear legal context for professional and amateur sport and recognises the unique characteristics of professional sports clubs. Will the Minister say whether he has considered or intends to consider other models of governance for professional sports clubs?

[Hugh Robertson]

Does the hon. Lady want me to respond now?

[Barbara Keeley]

The Minister can do so when he is summing up, given the number of hon. Members who wish to speak.

It may also be time to consider the tax regime that gave financial incentives to leverage buy-outs, such as the takeover of Manchester United by the Glazers, and whether such tax breaks are any longer appropriate.

Supporters and fans need the Government to take action to improve the governance of football in this country. The Sports Minister made commitments to do that, but more recently he seems to have softened those commitments, saying:

“We’ll give football the chance to sort itself out first by seeing how they plan to reform over the summer, and if it doesn’t work then the Government will step in. We need to take a serious look at reforming the governance and structure of football in this country.”

Will the Minister tell us today what plans the Government have after the summer to step in and take action, and when does he propose to start?

On fans owning their clubs wholly or in part, I believe that ordinary company law is insufficient because football clubs are not ordinary companies, which is shown by the fact that they are called clubs. That is how most of them started: they were clubs that were rooted in their local communities, not profit-making entities. They trade on the name, history and traditions of the city and the community they come from. They are unlike other businesses and should be treated as such. Football clubs are unique, and their sole purpose should not be to make profit for one individual or company at the expense of their fans and the wider community.

I will finish by saying that one never hears of anyone wanting to have their ashes scattered on the car park of their local supermarket or business park after they die. However, fans do want their ashes to be scattered in their football clubs. That is why football clubs are different.